You and your classmates have contributed to two Electronic Conversations which were based on the following quote from To Kill A Mockingbird: Scout says, "Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing."

Assignment: In the second "Conversation," you each discussed something or someone which you lost/almost lost/feared losing. Using this material as a resource, your assignment is to write a letter to this person (or thing--yes Toko-you can write to your room-- or Katsu to your eyes) expressing your feelings. Do this by writing a personal letter which includes creative descriptions and detailed narratives of your experiences. Be creative and free. Within the letter itself, you may converse, joke, tease, apologize, debate, argue, confess, pay tribute etc. It should be based on truth, but you may embellish if you wish (add information which is not accurate, but makes the writing more interesting).

Audience: Your teacher and classmates (and potentially others if your composition appears in the ISALC Newsletter). NOTE: This letter may be very personal so that you might not want to share it with others. If you want your letter to be private, please write a note to me when you turn in this assignment.

Evaluation: Your grade will be based on content, organization, vocabulary, language use, and mechanics. The number of drafts and quality of your revisions will also affect your grade. Minimum length-750 words.

Focus on making the paper coherent ( writing should progress in a logical, understandable way); unified (remember your theme: --everything in your paper should somehow relate to this) and well-developed (include enough detail to convey your feelings authentically and convincingly to the reader).

NOTE: Of course, you may want to use material from the "Electronic Conversation." It is possible to "copy and paste" this material into your Word document so that you don't have to retype it. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Follow the steps on your Conversation handout to get the Conversation icon on the right hand side of your screen.

2. Open a new MS Word document and save it to your disk.

3. Choose "Open" from the "File" menu.

4. Click on "Desktop" and then open the "Conversation" volume. Open "ali154". Open "someone/something special."

5. Highlight the part you want and choose "Copy" from the "Edit" menu.

6. Choose "Open" from the "File" menu and open the document you created in Step 2.

7. Choose "Paste" from the "Edit" menu.

8. Repeat this process if you need to copy more than one section of text from the Conversation.

9. Ask me if you need help and we'll get on the Mac in my office.

Return to Internet/Computer Writing Resources home page.

Created by: krauss@lclark.edu
Updated: 2/23/98